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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8338864" data-attributes="member: 16814">My argument was that the GM should not have either the duty or the authority to be the supervisor of the social contract -- a claim put forth by others in the thread.  I, instead, said that this duty is shared equally throughout the social group -- that each and every person present has the duty to enforce the social contract, and that each and every person present has the authority to call out breaches and negotiate corrections.This is what you're arguing against.  To do so requires that you're arguing for the duty and authority to be vested in specific individuals or that no duty is present at all.  Since the latter is not what you've been saying at all, and the former is very close, then your position has to be that the GM has special duty and special authority to enforce the social contract.  If the GM has this special duty/authority, then others do not, and that makes the GM the supervisor of the social group, responsible for ensuring the proper conduct of others.  This is the source of my assessment of your continued arguments that people are bad as resolving in-group problems and therefor need a minder of some kind.  I don't see how you can escape this conclusion given your continued arguments.I also agree that people are, in general, bad at resolving in-group arguments.  This is, however, because people are uncertain of whether or not they can stand up for themselves without receiving social opprobrium.  In other words, they feel disempowered to deal with the situation, and this is a reinforcing loop.  Your solution is to further disempower them by stating that the GM is in charge and so if the GM says nothing, they're wrong about the situation.  Given that GMs are only selected because they are willing to take on that role in a game, and that there's often quite a lot of power fantasy that attaches to that role, assigning this to the GM seems like a terribly idea -- they're no more qualified than anyone else at the table to successfully navigate in-group problems, and they're also often likely to confuse social contract issues with their role as GM (I mean, look at threads on this topic here and you'll clearly see that there's a strong feeling that GMs are special because they do more work and so their opinion carries more weight!).  This is a poor recipe.Instead, I recommend that everyone be aware and empowered to understand that they have both the duty and authority to call out breaches of the social contract.  This doesn't mean everyone for themselves, it means everyone for everyone.  If Betty is shy and has a hard time confronting Bob's antics, Paul or Angela should step in and say something, because they also have the duty.  Please, though, in this example, identify who the GM is for me?  Exactly my point -- you don't need to know for there to be a strong and healthy social contract here, and not everyone needs to be good at social issues or standing up for themselves.  The difference here is that we're not putting this on the GM, who should not be the leader of the social unit just by dint of their role in a game.</blockquote>

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